Chicken Reno, Part 3

Yes, we're still working on the kitchen here. And yes, I know I wrote "Chicken Reno" in the title of this post. "Kitchen" is one of Clara's newest words, but it comes out "chicken." Cute, huh? It was making us laugh today. That and the fact that she was calling Jeremy by his name rather than calling him Daddy.

Anyways, we went to church Sunday morning, then Jeremy and a friend worked on the kitchen the rest of that day. Monday my cousin's husband graciously offered to come and help again (he was here all day Saturday too) and today Jeremy has been working on it since about 8:00 this morning and he's still going now at 10:30 PM.

These pictures were just taken about fifteen minutes ago.

When I took them Jeremy was behind the dishwasher, under the countertop, working on hooking up the dishwasher. We haven't had any plumbing in the kitchen since Saturday morning so he's determined to get that done before he goes to bed tonight. I'm hoping it doesn't take him much longer because I know he's so exhausted and really needs to go to bed.

So right now you can see that the flooring is about 85% installed. All that's left is the entryway and under the fridge. Once that's done the fridge can come back from it's temporary home in the living room.

Also all of the base cabinets and the pantry cabinet are installed and all but a small portion of the countertops are installed. The only piece left is the one that goes on that one cabinet to the left of the stove. As of this evening our stove is operational again as well. Clara was the first to break it in with scrambled eggs for dinner (she ate them, not cooked them!).

I'm proud to say that I helped a bit with the flooring installation yesterday and I put on some of the cabinet hardware today! I've even started unpacking just a tiny bit. The basic pots and pans are put away, along with silverware, towels, cookie sheets and mixing bowls.

In the top picture can you see the space to the right of the sink cabinet? The dimensions of our kitchen didn't exactly match the dimensions of the available cabinets so we ended up with about a five inch gap on either side of the sink cabinet. My clever husband made them into cubbies for cookie sheets and such. I love them already!! They don't have doors on them so I'm imaging they might be kid magnets for a season, but I also think they'll be so convenient for quick and easy storage of those big items.

I'm totally loving how it's all coming together, though for Jeremy's sake I wish it were all just done now. He's ready for some rest I think. He'll be back to work (at his non-kitchen job) tomorrow and I know he's got a busy weekend this weekend so it might be awhile before there is another significant chunk of progress to share, but I'll be sure to post pictures when there is.